Westministers : Saving the Union

[RedToothBrush]

Apparently we need a tunnel. Just like we needed the £53 million failed Garden Bridge.

Nice little earner for anyone involved.

The DM are currently running 32 (!) separate stories on the royal family.

Very useful thread on the roll-out in France. And the previous thread he's linked to (some of the comments at the end re data).

Tom Forth
@thomasforth
Two weeks I said, but I think we can call it after 12 days. First of all, I'm not saying that the French and EU vaccination campaign has gone brilliantly, that would be ridiculous. I claim only that it's gone at least okay, and that (mostly) UK criticism has been unhelpful.

twitter.com/thomasforth/status/1368609379784736770?s=20

Starting to quantify the cost.....

www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-economy-trade-idUSKBN2B0001

And another interesting thread on Frost. The thread ponders on how Frost voted.

Yet Another Columnist
@Sime0nStylites
A very strange piece in which Boris Johnson makes a fleeting appearance in the final paragraph. You might be forgiven for wondering who was Prime Minister as Lord Frost name-checks the ministers responsible for negotiating the Brexit he negotiated.

twitter.com/Sime0nStylites/status/1368529800021880837?s=20

Remember, he was talking about the importance of staying in the Single Market pre-Ref

"Lord Frost is trusted by Conservative Eurosceptics but he was not always convinced about the merits of leaving the EU single market, arguing in 2016 that the benefits of future trade deals with the US, Japan and India would not compensate for the far greater loss of trade with the EU.

“The orders of magnitude are different and it simply isn’t worth jeopardising access to the single market for the sake of global trade,” he wrote."

[quote mrslaughan]Starting to quantify the cost.....

www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-economy-trade-idUSKBN2B0001[/quote]
TL;DR -whatever the problem was, Brexit ain't solving it.

I'm not surprised by this, but it's still shocking.
A food bank queue, today.
This is a broken country.
But we're all going to have a glorious summer and future, right.

twitter.com/alaniow/status/1368701444459802631?s=20

[quote squid4]I'm not surprised by this, but it's still shocking.
A food bank queue, today.
This is a broken country.
But we're all going to have a glorious summer and future, right.

twitter.com/alaniow/status/1368701444459802631?s=20[/quote]
That's made me cry. How can this government constantly be going on about how we're the best at this, that and the other, world leading at everything else, while it's people are going hungry? Sometimes I am so ashamed to be British.

Perrier to be banned, apparently

centralbylines.co.uk/hard-man-bridgen-picks-water-fight/

Andrew Bridgen MP has suggested to David Frost, the new minister for negotiating the post-Brexit Trade and Co-operation Agreement with the EU, that we retaliate against the French rejection of British shellfish exports by banning the import of Perrier water from France. He is either being frivolous with ministerial time or laughably serious.

(contd)

What's the chances that the MSM squirrelling with the Royal soap opera backfires and increases support for ditching the monarchy ? It would be a delicious event.

Britain was far closer to ditching the Royals when Victoria took the throne than now. If Brexiteers want to travel back in time they might want to know what they'll find their first.

Bridgen is a cockwomble

I had to look that up,
but yes, he is 😄

theconversation.com/meghan-and-harrys-oprah-interview-why-british-media-coverage-could-backfire-156424

Remnants of the steel industry in the shit

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56320416

The principal financial backer of one of the UK's largest industrial groups has fallen into administration.

Specialist bank Greensill Capital was the main lender to businessman Sanjeev Gupta's sprawling empire, which includes Liberty Steel.

(contd)

At least nurses will be able to see where the money goes when it gets propped up.

I wonder if any UK rescue deal will be picked up by the Brexit treaty ? State aid and all that ?

Greensill are not a "specialist bank"
they are a factoring company who have bollocksed up their percentages.

And Johnson lies yet again
twitter.com/Femi_Sorry/status/1368977072694194185

I found the foodbank video upsetting too. It's hard to think of so many people struggling.

So apparently this is what it's like tallking to Boris Johnson about Covid:
uk.yahoo.com/news/first-minister-wales-branded-boris-142715017.html

"[teething problems...] we're fixing those with with temporary technical things"

Aka not bothering to do any checks, at least for goods coming in to the UK but the pesky EU insists on checking everything that goes into them Does wonders for imports to the UK but not so good for exports

"...and it can be ironed out, in as much as the EU objects to that, with goodwill and imagination"

See comment above

He really really doesn't understand what trade outside of a (let alone the ) Single Market involves does he? There were always going to NTBs. That why there are queues at the Turkish border, even though it's in the CU

He still thinks that the EU will see the light and recognise "who the Empire we are"

Well ... nothing to see here then

Lost
I got that too .....
THe pet food shelves are 80% empty

I bought pouch cat food about a week ago and it was looking a bit thin on the shelves but DCat’s favoured stuff was in stock.

I might have to go and investigate Tesco’s and Waitrose to see if they have the same shortages.

Fortunately DCat is mostly on biscuits, the pouch stuff is a top up and I still have some of my Zombie Apocalypse stocks.

MIL is waiting for some prescribed medical dressings. Should have come in last week, or the week before. Still no sign. Made in Germany. What could be causing the delay?

Meanwhile, the wonderful new Great Brexitannia Turing scheme is looking a little lacklustre compared to Erasmus.

Damn. I've been working through my Brexit stock. Including the extra dog food I made my DH buy back in Dec. Seems that shortages may be a perpetual (growing?) problem. Need to restock. What a load of incompetent and thick tossers we have for politicians.

But likes this photo...

mobile.twitter.com/Stayathomemum6/status/1368936858445619202/photo/1

Then you’ll also appreciate George Peretz’s tweets today about Home Office oversight of asylum conditions during the pandemic:

I don’t say this lightly, but this extraordinary report by two independent government inspectorates into the way in which people were detained by the Home Office at Napier Barracks is a matter that calls for ministerial resignations.

Patel was questioned by the Home Affairs Committee on Feb 24th about it.

The correct answer would have been: “we had advice from PHE that we shouldn’t do this, but went ahead anyway.”

But we all know what will happen.